Android Things Category - CNX Software

February 5, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

PICO-PI-IMX7 NXP i.MX7 SBC offered for under $20 (Promo)

TechNexion PICO-Pi-IMX7 single board computer was introduced a few years ago with an NXP i.MX 7Solo or 7Dual Cortex-A7 Intel Edison compatible CPU module, in a form factor similar to Raspberry Pi 3, and supported by Android Things that was still a thing at the time… It looks like Arrow Electronics is trying to get rid of some stock, as the company is selling the Amazon version of the PICO-PI-IMX7 board for $19.58 including free shipping for ArrowPerks members, instead of the usual $120+ price tag. We had written about the PICO-iMX6 module and PICO-PI-iMX8 SBC previously, but never about the i.MX7 version, nor the PICO-PI-IMX7 board, so let’s have a closer look at what the board has to offer. PICO-Pi-IMX7 specifications: PICO-iMX7 system-on-module SoC – NXP i.MX 7Dual dual-core Cortex-A7 processor @ 1 GHz with Cortex-M4 real-time core System Memory – 512MB DDR3L Storage – 4GB eMMC flash Connectivity […]

July 27, 2018July 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Lenovo Launches the First Smart Display with Google Assistant for $200 and Up

Android Things based smart displays were announced at CES 2018 with companies like Lenovo, LG, JBL, and Sony promising products later this year. In May, Google announced Google Assistant was now supporting smart displays, and released Android Things 1.0, the first production-ready version of the operating system. With all main software components released a few months ago, the first smart displays with Google Assistant support have now started selling for $199.99 and up courtesy of Lenovo. The smart display is available with either a 8″ or 10″ display. Lenovo Smart Display specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Home Hub Platform based on Snapdragon 624 octa-core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.8 GHz System Memory – Up to 2GB RAM Storage – Up to 4GB eMMC flash Display (one or the other) 8″ IPS display with 1280 x 800 resolution, 86° Wide Angle 10″ IPS display with 1920×1200 resolution, 86° Wide Angle Audio 8″ […]

July 26, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Google Unveils Edge TPU Low Power Machine Learning Chip, AIY Edge TPU Development Board and Accelerator

Google introduced artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts to hundreds of thousands of people with their AIY projects kit such as the AIY Voice Kit with voice recognition and the AIY Vision Kit for computer vision applications. The company has now gone further by unveiling Edge TPU, its own purpose-built ASIC chip designed to run TensorFlow Lite ML models at the edge, as well as corresponding AIY Edge TPU development board, and AIY Edge TPU accelerator USB stick to add to any USB compatible hardware. Google Edge TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) & Cloud IoT Edge Software Edge TPU is a tiny chip for machine learning (ML) optimized for performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar. It can either accelerate ML inferencing on device, or can pair with Google Cloud to create a full cloud-to-edge ML stack. In either case, local processing reduces latency, remove the needs for a persistent network connection, increases privacy, and […]

May 23, 2018May 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

A Closer Look at Mediatek MT8516 Cortex A35 SoM / Devkit for Android Things

Earlier this month, Google released Android Things 1.0, the first stable release for the IoT operating system, and announced several certified SoMs (systems-on-module) based on NXP i.MX 8M, Qualcomm SDA212 & SDA624, and MediaTek MT8516 SoCs. However at the time, beside some information about the processor itself, there was not many details about MT8516 system-on-module. Since then, MediaTek wrote a blog post about their Cortex A35 solution for Android Things & Google Assistant, so let’s have a look. First the MT8516 SoM is not exactly what I had expected, but instead a complete single board computer, and this is why they call it virtual SoM (vSOM). Google defines the latter as reference design provided by the chip vendors and certified by Google. Mediatek MT8516 quad core Cortex A35 vSoM / development board specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT8516 quad core Cortex A35 processor without GPU System Memory – 4Gbit (512MB) DDR3L […]

May 8, 2018May 8, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Android Things 1.0 Released with Support for NXP i.MX 8M, Qualcomm SDA212/SDA624 and Mediatek MT8516 SoMs

Brillo Project was renamed to Android Things with the release of a developer preview back in December 2014, and the operating system enabling developers and companies to build and maintain Internet of Things devices at scale. The OS has now graduated so-to-speak with the release of Android Things 1.0 with long-term support for production devices, and this was to be expected as several Android Things devices were announced earlier this year. The new release adds supports for new system-on-modules (SoMs) based on the NXP i.MX8M, Qualcomm SDA212, Qualcomm SDA624, and MediaTek MT8516 SoCs. These modules are certified for production use with guaranteed long-term support for 3 years, and development hardware and reference designs for these SoMs will be available in the coming months. The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and NXP i.MX7D boards and system-on-modules are still supported, but support for NXP i.MX6UL devices will be deprecated. Check out the […]

March 19, 2018March 8, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

FOSSASIA Summit 2018 Schedule – March 22-25

FOSDEM is the “Free & Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting” takes place the first week-end of February every year in Brussels, Belgium. It turns out there’s an event in Asia called FOSSASIA Summit that’s about to take place in Singapore on March 22-25. There are some differences however, as while FOSDEM is entirely free to attend, FOSSASIA requires to pay an entry fee to attend talks, although there are free tickets to access the exhibition hall and career fair. There are also less sessions as in FOSDEM, but still twelve different tracks with: Artificial Intelligence Blockchain Cloud, Container, DevOps Cybersecurity Database Kernel & Platform Open Data, Internet Society, Community Open Design, IoT, Hardware, Imaging Open Event Solutions Open Source in Business Science Tech Web and Mobile Since the event is spread out over four days, it should be easier to attend the specific sessions you are interested in. I’ve […]

March 9, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Rockchip Unveils RK3308 & Gemini Cortex-A35 Processors for Smart Speakers

Rockchip has posted a tweet about smart speakers, specifically about Midea AI speaker based on Rockchip RK3229, but the second image is what caught my eyes, as it reveals two new Arm Cortex A35 processor designed for “Smart AI solutions”, namely RK3308 and “Gemini” Processor. Rockchip RK3308 “mainstream” processor specifications: CPU – Quad core Cortex A35 processor GPU – TBD (maybe none?) Audio Integrated 8-ch ADC and hardware VAD (Voice Activity Detection) module Multi-channel PDM/I2S/TDM audio interface Rockchip Gemini “high-end” processor specifications: CPU – Quad core Cortex A35 processor GPU – Mali Dvalin MP2 GPU Audio – “high-end smart audio solution”; multi-channel PDM/I2S/TDM audio interface Video I/O – LCD screen & camera support Rockchip will provide support for Android Thing and Linux for the processors, as well as integration with MIC arrays boards and popular voice services such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Baidu DuerOS, and others. Arm Cortex A35 […]

February 13, 2018February 13, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Embedded Linux Conference & IoT Summit 2018 Schedule

The Embedded Linux Conference 2018 and the OpenIoT Summit 2018 will jointly take place next month, on March 12 – 14, 2018 in Portland, Oregon, USA. The former is a “vendor-neutral technical conference for companies and developers using Linux in embedded products”, while the latter is a “technical conference for the developers and architects working on industrial IoT”. The Linux Foundation has already published the schedule, and it’s always useful to learn what will be discussed about even for people who won’t attend. With that in mind, here’s my own virtual schedule with some of the talks I find interesting / relevant to this blog. Monday, March 12 10:50 – 11:40 – Progress in the Embedded GPU Ecosystem by Robert Foss, Collabora Ltd. Ten years ago no one would have expected the embedded GPU ecosystem in Linux to be what it is now. Today, a large number of GPUs have […]